. >> i remember talking to philip levine the number of poetry readings, he said you can't take a walk without tripping over one as owe poe posed to when he was young. >> it's enormous. a small percentage of that population that actually reads poetry, i think however that poetry is influencing the culture in ways we don't see and ways that other arts are as well. in the lives of people who don't pay attention to it. in ways that not always aware of. i talk about that in the introduction. >> more than 100,000 submissions certainly a lot of people are writing poetry. >> i think it's actually -- may not get people to admit that they're writing poetry, but the number of people who write poetry -- don't show it to anybody. i mean all the time, they don't want to show it just talk about the act of having written something. i think it's embedded in our genes. we don't know it as culture that doesn't have poetry. it has such roots that not going to be -- >> we'll continue this conversation online. i hope our viewers will join us there. for now, christian wiman thanks for talking to us about th